The invention relates to a combination instrument in a configuration as it is used in the dashboard of motor vehicles, in particular of passenger vehicles, trucks and buses. Combination instruments of this type have, in addition to a certain number of warning luminaires, diverse analog and digital display units in order to indicate for example the vehicle speed, the engine speed and other measured values and operating states of apparatuses arranged in the vehicle.
In this context, the display units are conventionally fitted rigidly in the housing of the combination instrument. The combination instrument itself is also conventionally fitted rigidly in the dashboard of the motor vehicle. On account of the rigid fittings mentioned, however, parallax errors and errors caused by lack of definition can occur during the reading of the display units, because the individual position of the driver""s eyepoint varies depending on said driver""s sitting position and physique. Particularly when LCD technology is used to form one or more display units in which error-free reading is possible only within a predefined viewing angle, the rigid arrangement of display units in combination instruments is disadvantageous because the usability of the display units is thereby subject to a considerable restriction and is unavoidably dependent on characteristics of the driver.
The object of the present invention, then, is to present a combination instrument having integrated diverse analog and digital display units in which the readability of the display units can be individually optimized for any arbitrary position of the driver""s eyepoint, to be precise particularly when the display units have a restricted viewing angle for their readability on account of the technology used for them.
The object is achieved for a combination instrument of the generic type by virtue of the fact that at least one of its display units can be pivoted about at least one spatial axis by a drive arranged in the combination instrument. The dependent claims relate to refinements of the solution that has been found, namely that the display units can preferably be pivoted in two spatial planes, whole subregions of the housing of the combination instrument can be pivoted together with the display units integrated therein, and the display units can be pivoted by at least one servomotor which can be controlled by the driver.